discount airlines - Travel Deals

If you’re a budget-hunting traveler, the words “low-cost airline” should be music to your ears. You may be familiar with some of the names of the bigger discount airlines without even realizing that’s what they are – but it’s less likely that you know about budget airlines that fly to different parts of the world. Often times, what get classified as “budget airlines” are really just regional or smaller carriers – so they aren’t brands that are known outside of the area they cover.

We’ve written about discount airlines that fly from the United States to different parts of the world, and since those are a bunch of different links that aren’t always easy to find we wanted to make sure you could get to all of them if you needed them. Here are the articles we’ve written about budget airlines, and where they fly.

When Mexico was dealing with one bad news story after another, it seemed like the entire country was on sale for travelers. In some cases, it might have even felt like they were paying you to come visit. You may still be able to find great deals on flights to Mexico at certain times of year due to less-than-ideal weather or some other bit of bad press, but one way to increase your chances of finding cheap fares to Mexico is by making sure you’re including the budget airlines that fly to Mexico in your search.

Like most other countries, Mexico has a host of smaller “no frills” airlines serving airports throughout the country in addition to the big airlines with more familiar names. Some of them are technically “regional” airlines, in that they serve only a few cities in one particular part of Mexico, and not all of them cross the border into the United States. But some of the discount airlines in Mexico do serve some cities in the United States, so if you’re planning a Mexican vacation they’re definitely the airlines you should be looking at.

Recently we looked at some of the budget airlines in the United States to help you save money on your next trip – but if you looked at the list of those airlines, you’ll have noticed that our neighbor to the north is sadly missing from the destination lists of most of them. That’s right, Canada gets no love from the big U.S.-based discount airlines.

That’s not to say all flights to Canada are going to cost an arm and a leg, however, or that the only budget airlines serving Canadian airports are products of Canada, either. In fact, many of the cheap flights to Canada you’ll find are on airlines with names you’ll probably recognize – you just might be on a much smaller plane than you’re used to.

Canada used to be blessed with more of its own home-grown budget airlines, but carriers like Jetsgo (who doesn’t love that name? I so love that name!) and Zoom Airlines have folded in recent years because of the nearly impossible task of putting the words “airline” and “profitable” in the same sentence these days. One budget airline from years gone by didn’t completely disappear, and for years has been operating charter flights only – but they’re poised to make a comeback into the discount flight arena in 2010. That airline, along with other discount carriers that fly into Canada, are listed below.